


Stepped Out Of A Stranger

by linaerys



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-10
Updated: 2007-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:57:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter and Nathan follow Isaac’s paintings across the country and find more than they expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you and hugs to [](http://eponis.livejournal.com/profile)[**eponis**](http://eponis.livejournal.com/) for story notes, pointing out that I can’t spell “Haitian,” beta-ing and general hand-holding. I couldn't have done it without you!

Peter’s eyes fluttered open, and Nathan felt a strange sense of déjà vu. At least this time Nathan was with Peter when he awoke, and Peter wasn’t screaming. This time, Peter turned sleepy eyes toward Nathan and said, “You’re alive,” with relief and a sort of satisfied certainty. “And everyone else too?” He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the pillow.

Nathan shook his head, remembering Simone’s death, and Isaac’s head sliced open, his brains spilling out over the painting of an exploding New York on his floor. “Oh,” said Peter, before Nathan could say anything. “No, it’s okay, I remember now.”

“Are you reading my mind, Pete?” Nathan asked quietly, but Peter had already gone back to sleep. There had been too many of _them_ there, and Nathan couldn’t keep track of what strange abilities Peter was likely to manifest next.

The doctors hadn’t known what to do with him. After Peter saved New York, when Nathan flew him to the hospital, Peter had been unconscious and burning up again, and had come out of his delirium only long enough to fling hospital equipment, nurses and doctors across the room with his mind before lapsing into a coma again. Mrs. Petrelli had spread around some money and the Haitian’s special brand of discretion, and nothing more happened, as long as Nathan stayed near Peter.

It was best if Nathan was actually in physical contact with Peter, holding his hand, stroking his shoulder. Nathan had fallen asleep more nights than he could count in the chair next to Peter’s bed.

“You weren’t this attentive with me,” Heidi said when she came to visit, but she relented before Nathan could say anything. “I know, he’s your brother; it’s different.”

“Right, different,” Nathan said.

“He had you first,” said Heidi.

Nathan looked down at his hand clasping Peter’s and felt a ghost of the awful pain of the nuclear blast that had flayed the skin off of it. He remembered looking down at a his hands and seeing only bones, seeing the flesh peeled off his arms as well, then—death. And then it was gone again, and Peter’s powers had saved them all, where once those powers had doomed them. A step through time, and Nathan’s skin was whole again. Like nothing ever happened.

But Isaac’s prophecies had been right, and so had Peter’s dreams: New York did explode. The dreams and paintings just didn’t show the next part, when another Peter came from the future and told himself how to stop it.

“I could make you forget,” said the Haitian when Nathan told him and Mrs. Petrelli what he remembered. “Do you want that?”

No one else remembered, except him and Peter. It was one more way in which they were both different, and another unwelcome gift. Nathan shook his head. “No,” he said, and then frowned. “What _is_ your name?”

“He doesn’t have one,” said Mrs. Petrelli.

“Forgot it?” asked Nathan then added, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be an ass, Nathan. Your father found him many years ago when he went to Haiti for an extradition proceeding,” said Mrs. Petrelli.

“When Linderman sent him, you mean?” asked Nathan.

Mrs. Petrelli waved her hand dismissively. “Never mind that.” Even after all this she wanted to play her hand close to the vest.

Dr. Suresh came by a few times and drew Peter’s blood, hoping to find something that the hospital’s doctors couldn’t. If Peter was going to fall into a coma every time he had to use his powers, Nathan decided, it might be better if he didn’t have them at all.

He called in a few favors to get lab space for Dr. Suresh in Columbia’s genetics lab. Dr. Suresh visited the hospital again back after running some of his tests. “Human physiology can only handle so much,” he told Nathan. “The ability to fly is written on every one of your cells.” Nathan frowned at that, but Dr. Suresh ignored it. “But Peter’s DNA has a section that is completely variable—it appears that he can change it with his own mind, based on some kind of sense memory of how the alteration felt the first time.”

“And . . . ,” Nathan prompted.

“Not every change is one his body can easily sustain. Flying comes naturally because his genes are already so close to yours, but the rest . . .”

“Can you cure him?” Nathan asked, trying to forestall another genetics lecture.

“All the others, even you, could probably be made normal with gene therapy, but Peter is special, even among the rest of you.”

Peter’s eyes were moving more rapidly beneath his closed lids and Nathan wondered if he could hear this conversation, if he would consent to such a treatment even if Dr. Suresh could discover one. “Yes, he’s special,” Nathan agreed. “Let me know if you find out anything else.”

Claire had visited with Mrs. Petrelli to bid Peter goodbye before she went into hiding again. She could barely look at Nathan, but she kissed Peter on the cheek and whispered something in his ear. That had been a few days ago, and now she and his mother were traveling somewhere in Europe, to escape this mysterious Company.

“Don’t, Nathan,” said Mrs. Petrelli when Nathan asked where they were going. “You can’t tell what you don’t know.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little—?” He was going to say “melodramatic” but she cut him off.

“No, I don’t. Don’t try to contact me, I’ll contact you.”

And they were gone. Heidi haunted their house like a ghost, leaving their sons more and more in the care of their nanny, and Nathan stayed at the hospital.

A week after Claire and his mother left, the doctors told Nathan that Peter was finally in a natural sleep, the fever broken, and they thought Nathan could leave him alone. So Nathan went home to shower and try to grab a few minutes of sleep himself. He’d missed the party celebrating his election, meetings of House Democrats now that Congress had changed parties, the press conferences and TV appearances, all sacrificed for Peter.

***

A lawyer’s office messengered the black tube that held the paintings to Nathan’s house and the maid brought them with the day’s mail. The return address showed that they were from a New York law firm that handled some of Linderman’s finances. Nathan peeled off the priority mail tape, unscrewed the top of the tube, unrolled them and set them on his desk, weighting down the corners with staplers and jars of pens.

These paintings would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, now that Isaac Mendez was dead, but it was worth even more than that to Nathan if they never saw the light of day. The first few were harmless, paintings of him and Peter driving, but below those was a painting of unmistakable sensuality, and the one after that was simply obscene.

He looked at the faces in the paintings, because it was easier than looking at what their bodies were doing, twisted and twined together like all his worst imaginings. In one, Peter’s mouth was open, stretched with pleasure and unrepentant need, while the Nathan figure was behind him, fucking him over the side of a bed. In the other, Nathan’s mouth was stretched around the Peter-figure’s dick instead. Nathan’s avatar has his head down in concentration, eyes closed, eyelashes a black sooty line on his cheeks.

Nathan’s first instinct was to destroy them—black paint was not permanent enough for paintings like this—Nathan wanted fire, acid, a nuclear explosion, perhaps. Anything so he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that these paintings existed, and worse, that someone else had seen them, had witnessed these intimate moments before Nathan did. But he had to find out who had sent them, who knew about them, and what they meant. Isaac painted the future, and Nathan needed any information about the future that he could get.

Isaac’s distaste for Peter had etched itself into every line of the first painting. His style was broad, cartoonish (po-mo pop-art, the _New Yorker_ had called it), and he had exaggerated Peter’s long jaw, his shadowed eyes, and made him look like a villain. Nathan hadn’t fared much better: square-jawed, blocky, and with a scar on his chin far more prominent than his was in real life.

“He blames me,” Peter had told Nathan, “for Simone. For everything.” Nathan remembered the way Peter’s hair fell into his face, how he wanted to brush it back. It was getting too long then, curling over the edge of his collar in back, rough and ragged at the ends. He remembered holding onto Peter with both hands and still watching him turn invisible, slip away.

The art of Isaac’s final months had an obsessive quality: empty spaces and Peter’s emptier eyes. Nathan had seen Linderman’s collection of Mendez’s work, or part of it at least, laid out like one long story, end to end, around the walls of a bare room. “And then, tragically, he painted his own end,” Linderman had said, in a hollow imitation of sympathy.

Nathan heard a knock on the door. “I’m busy,” he barked. He locked the door and then returned to his desk to contemplate the paintings. The others showed more mundane scenes: Peter and Nathan driving through winter landscapes in a black SUV, Peter standing at a window, looking out over some anonymous parking lot, but the paintings that showed the two of them together drew Nathan’s eyes back again. Mendez had certainly put all his hatred of Peter, of both of them, into these paintings, and Nathan wanted to argue with him that it wasn’t be like that, but he wondered if Mendez had seen something here which both Peter and Nathan had been hiding from for years.

It was an overcast morning, six years ago, when Nathan’s world had been shaken, cracked and then put back together . . . wrong.

He had gone to pick Peter up at one of the crappy, roach-ridden apartments where Peter had lived while taking one step forward, two steps back through college. Nathan knocked on the door sharply after walking up the five flights of stairs. Peter was supposed to meet him on the street.

“I’m coming,” he heard Peter say from beyond the door. Peter opened the door a minute later, still tugging down a sweatshirt over his slim stomach and buttoning his khakis.

“Hey,” said another voice before Peter closed the door behind him. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” The voice belonged to a pretty blond boy, with almost the same haircut as Peter’s: long golden bangs shadowing his eyes. He edged out into the hallway, wearing nothing but pajama pants, and Peter leaned his face down to the boy’s and gave him a long, wet kiss, before looking at Nathan, challenging, daring him to say something.

Nathan started to say something crude and pointed, but then looked at Peter’s sleep-blurred eyes, and the almost pleading look he gave Nathan, and instead took a deep breath and simply said, “Come on. It’s a four-hour drive to Boston.”

“We’re not flying?” asked Peter as he turned and waved slightly at the boy still standing in the door.

“No, I have to be on a conference call. Mom went up early to do, I don’t know, bride stuff.”

Peter threw his duffle bag in the trunk of the car, while Nathan winced at the state the suit within would be in when Peter took it out. “Mom has my suit,” said Peter, catching Nathan’s look. Nathan shrugged.

Peter got in at the curb edge and slid across so Nathan could sit next to him. It wasn’t a limo, not quite, but it was larger than the usual Towncar, and had a pane of black glass separating the passengers from the driver. Nathan slid in next to him, tugging up the legs of his trousers so they wouldn’t wrinkle as much, and tapped on the glass.

As the driver pulled away from the curb, Nathan turned toward Peter. He was sure he could still see the glisten of the other boy’s saliva still on Peter’s lips. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you to be discreet?”

“No,” said Peter, sullen, of course, and he turned away to stare out the window.

“Who is he?” Nathan asked.

“An art student,” said Peter, with his head still turned away.

Nathan snorted. “Of course.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing, Peter. I hope you’re happy.” Nathan tried to mean it, but the words sounded ominous, even to his own ears.

“Sure,” said Peter, “that’s what you want. My happiness.”

Nathan called into his conference bridge and spent most of the rest of the drive making notes on depositions and jotting down an opening statement for a case that would begin in a few weeks. He didn’t spend too much effort on it, because this one, like so many others in the past few years, would probably go to a plea, and he’d get no camera time at all. No sense in getting invested in this particular case.

It was the next day, when the wedding party was in full swing and both of them were more than a few sheets to the wind, that Nathan confronted Peter. Peter stood next to a bar made entirely out of ice chatting listlessly with the bartender. He’d undone his tie and left his jacket on a chair somewhere. His hair had fallen forward from where he had slicked it back earlier in the evening, and his cheeks were slightly reddened. Peter was only twenty, but he held his liquor well, a legacy of too many parties just like this. Still, Nathan could see the telltale droop in his eyelids and the faint sheen of sweat on his face that gave him away. Nathan walked up to him and pushed Peter by the arm over to a corner that was shadowed by a huge urn of orchid stems.

“So, you’re going to be gay now?” he asked, sneering a little. He didn’t know why this should be a surprise, why he expected any different from Peter, why he should care. Peter did things like this all the time, things to designed to provoke a response, to bring Nathan running to his rescue, or running to scold him. This shouldn’t have been any different.

“Maybe,” said Peter, wrapping his lips around the neck of a beer bottle and taking a swig. Then he smiled sourly. “No, bisexual, I guess.” He looked away like the word made him uncomfortable. “This isn’t about you.”

“Of course it is,” said Nathan. “You realize how this looks? What this could do to the family?” An old refrain. “If you’re just messing around? If this isn’t for real?”

“It looks like the brother of the great Nathan Petrelli is fucking a guy. You hate it, Dad will hate it, and no one else gives a shit.” He took the step that closed the difference between them and poked his finger at Nathan’s chest, connecting with a sharp jab. “Not. Everything. Is about. You,” he said, emphasizing each word with another poke. Nathan pressed his lips together and closed his eyes for a long minute, reaching for control.

He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Peter . . .” he said, without really knowing what to say next. They always seemed to get to this impasse. Nathan wouldn’t, or couldn’t give Peter whatever kind of attention he craved, and Peter couldn’t stop angling for it. It was the rock they always ran aground on.

“What, Nathan?” asked Peter. His face was only inches away, and Nathan could almost taste the beer and other alcohol on his breath. “You wish it was you, don’t you? You don’t want to think about me bending over for anyone who isn’t you.” There was a brittle, belligerent tone in his voice than Nathan wasn’t used to. Peter usually kept his rebellion within reasonable bounds, but now Nathan wondered if it was about to spill out into the public sphere in a way Nathan couldn’t sweep under the rug anymore.

“Be quiet,” said Nathan under his breath. “You’re making a scene.”

Peter leaned his head back against the wall and took another drink from the beer bottle. Nathan watched the muscles in his neck work as he swallowed. “I’m right, though, aren’t I?” he asked.

A denial should have come easily—it was a preposterous thing to be accused of—but Nathan stood there, frozen for a moment, and before he had the chance to frame an answer, something to banish the thought of what it _would_ be like if he crossed those few inches between them, he felt Heidi’s hand on his arm. “What’s going on here?” she asked with a note of light concern in her voice.

“Peter’s just had a few too many,” said Nathan in his ask-no-questions voice. “I’m going to get him up to his room.”

Heidi removed her hand from his arm, slightly offended, Nathan knew, at his tone, but later Nathan would apologize, and Heidi would say something about how Peter’s a good kid but he does know how to push Nathan’s buttons. And before, Nathan would have nodded, and sighed, and agreed, but now he dreaded having to confront all this again with Heidi.

He put his arm under Peter’s to support him, and walked him out of the ballroom. “I’m fine, Nathan,” said Peter, loud enough to be heard over the music and the clink of glasses.

“I don’t want to continue this conversation where people can hear,” Nathan whispered. He glanced around, but only Heidi was watching them, and her smile was one of amused annoyance, nothing else.

When the elevator reached their floor, Nathan took Peter by the elbow and steered him down the hall. Peter had a moment of trouble working his keycard, but then he got the door open and tugged Nathan toward him by the ends of his untied bow-tie. “Come on Nathan, what are you scared of? It doesn’t run in the family.” He put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder and angled his head to one side, expression challenging, dangerous. Tempting.

“You’re drunk, Peter, and you don’t know what you’re saying,” said Nathan. He put his hand up to Peter’s lips to silence him, and turned Peter’s face away, gently trying to push him away, into the room, toward his bed and sleep.

“Oh, I do,” Peter said, edging his fingers over Nathan’s collar, and caressing the skin of his neck. Nathan wanted to pull away, to push Peter away from him again, but his body didn’t obey him—instead he stood frozen, waiting.

“You do,” said Peter wonderingly. “I never thought . . .”

Nathan could see what might happen next, clear as a movie: a rough kiss, and some time after that things that Nathan had never admitted he wanted, and more, an endless freefall. Peter snaked his hand around the back of Nathan’s neck and pulled Nathan toward him, and ran his other hand down the front of Nathan’s body. His cock jumped against Peter’s hand when it got there, and that gave Nathan the momentum he needed to stop this, to push Peter away as he should have long before they got to this place.

“No,” said Nathan, but he couldn’t come up with any more of an argument than that, not when Peter was still looking at him with those wide, pleading eyes. He pushed Peter gently away from him. “No,” he said again. “Sleep it off, Pete.” And he fought the urge to push the hair up off Peter’s forehead for him, because it was what he always did. Now he had to second-guess every gesture.

Since then, Nathan thought that it had gone away, mostly, or been subsumed into all the other strange currents in their relationship. Amid all the competition and complicity, what was one more secret, especially one that deeply hidden, that unacknowledged?

Until Peter started in on his hero quest, and asked Nathan to come with him, tried to drag Nathan away from his well-planned life. But no, this strangeness between them had never disappeared. Peter had simply never pressed Nathan that way again, and Nathan had kept what distance he could between them. Sometimes he saw something in the way Peter dropped his eyelids when they spoke; they still touched as much as before, except now it meant, _we can’t have that, but we can have this_. It didn’t, it couldn’t be what they wanted, but it was almost enough for a while.

Until it Peter needed to be rescued, bullied, saved and died for, and Nathan’s world started revolving around Peter again.

Nathan rolled up the paintings without looking at them again, and put them in the tube, and locked the tube in his bottom desk drawer, the one to which he had the only key.

Peter was awake again when Nathan went back to the hospital. “I had a dream,” he said when he saw Nathan in the doorway.

Nathan clenched his jaw, willing some patience, fighting down the rising panic. “Oh, a dream?”

“Isaac left me some paintings,” said Peter. Then he looked at Nathan accusingly. “And he sent them to you.”

“How do you know that?” asked Nathan, frowning.

“You’re thinking about it,” said Peter with a wan smile.

“Maybe you should stop using your—,” he lowered his voice, “—powers.” _And stay out of my mind,_ Nathan added to himself.

“If you let me see the paintings, I wouldn’t have to,” said Peter, unapologetic. He reached up to touch the thin red seam on his forehead, and frowned. “How bad does it look, Nathan?”

Nathan frowned and took Peter’s hand in his and gently laid it back down on top of the pale green sheet. With his other hand he reached up to Peter’s forehead and smoothed the line with his thumb. “It will fade,” he said. “Now what’s this about a dream?”

Peter drew his eyebrows together and Nathan could feel the skin wrinkling under his thumb. “The paintings. They’re another mission.”

“Another cheerleader?” asked Nathan

“Hey she turned out to be—,” Peter started.

Nathan lowered his fingers from Peter’s forehead to his lips to quiet him. “Don’t.”

“No one can hear,” said Peter, but Nathan shook his head. “Fine. But this is something we have to do. In my dream—another—there were people like us who needed rescuing.”

“We’ll talk about it when you’re well,” said Nathan. Peter turned his face against Nathan’s palm and seemed to be drifting off to sleep again.

“Don’t destroy them, Nathan,” said Peter with a huge yawn. “I’ll know this time.”

“You knew last time, too. You always get your way,” he said quietly, but Peter was already asleep.

***

“Everyone loves it,” said Sidney, Nathan’s campaign manager, now chief of staff, when they finally had time for a meeting. “The Flying Congressman. You’re going to have a lot of clout for a freshman. No one will want to be against Superman.” Movers were packing up the New York City campaign headquarters around them, and all of them had wanted to shake Nathan’s hand; some even asked for autographs.

Outside the window, a cold, late-fall rain was coming down, and Nathan thought about flying through it, the needle spray against his skin, hard and painful and punishing. He hadn’t flown since Election Day, after Peter turned back time and the image of Nathan flying Peter away from their own little ground zero was splashed across every TV screen in the world.

Peter had asked him to—he needed to get away from all those others, the ones with powers, so he could control the one power that would save New York. Nathan had hesitated for a moment, still feeling an echo the white hot pain that seared the flesh off his hands, but in the end he did: held onto Peter and flew him high up into the atmosphere until he could get that power under control.

Nathan turned over a pen in his fingers. “This doesn’t scare you?”

“Hell, I love it,” said Sidney, “I always wanted that shit to be real. But you have to give a press conference. The brother-in-the-hospital thing worked for a while, but that excuse is starting to get kind of played.” Nathan looked at him sharply. “Hey, I know he has problems, but the voters run out of sympathy pretty fast and people want to know about this. I’ve been hearing rumors, FBI, stuff. There are others, aren’t there?”

Nathan stood up and paced around the emptying office. “I don’t want my family involved,” he said finally.

“Fine, we’ll come up with something. But you have to tell me the truth. I can’t protect you if you don’t,” said Sidney.

Nathan smiled, and lowered his eyes, his favorite rehearsed move for heading off questions. It made him look agreeable, trustworthy. “Of course,” he said.

***

Peter came home a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Nathan continued to pay the rent on the apartment on the Lower East Side, but Peter said he didn’t want to go back there alone. Instead he stayed with Heidi, Nathan and the boys in Westchester, and he didn’t seem interested in going back to work, in doing anything other than sleeping ten hours a day, playing with the kids, and watching TV.

Peter agreed to help Nathan with Dr. Suresh, after Nathan told him they were going to go public or semi-public at least. Nathan invited Dr. Suresh to come to his office, sent a car in the middle of the day to fetch him from his temporary lab at Columbia and asked Peter to be there as well, to make sure any agreement Dr. Suresh made was genuine.

“You’re happy enough reading my mind,” Nathan had said when Peter protested that part of the plan. “This is for the greater good.”

Nathan shook Dr. Suresh’s hand when he arrived. He’d survived the encounter with Sylar by becoming even more tense and watchful, but he gave Peter a warm smile.

“Dr. Suresh,” said Nathan without preamble. “I want you to do a press conference.”

Suresh sneaked a look at Peter, but Peter had put on his blankest expression, so Suresh wouldn’t find any help there. “Yes,” he said coolly, “and what should I say?”

“Explain your theories, in layman’s terms if possible,” said Nathan. “Give them some scientific plausibility to hang all this on.” Nathan gestured with his hands to encompass the three of them, and possibly the whole world outside. “Make them feel safe.”

“Very well.” Suresh nodded, still looking distrustful.

Nathan turned and paced across the floor. “People are going to want to know that it’s not just me. So we need examples—harmless examples—of people who have these abilities. Nothing frightening.”

“What’s frightening?”

“Mind reading. Super-strength. Self-healing.” He glanced at Peter, who was now rolling his eyes. “I’m telling you, Peter, no one wants to think of a sweet, innocent girl pushing her ribs back into her chest.”

“Is invisibility scary?” asked Peter.

“Yes—it will make people think of spies. No, we need things like flying and—,” Nathan snapped his fingers at Suresh, “—what else?”

“Well, I haven’t found anyone who can spontaneously create puppies and butterflies, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” said Suresh.

Nathan ignored the sarcasm. “You do that.”

“And why should I do this? Lie for you?” asked Suresh. He jutted his chin out, and the naivety of his question made Nathan smile slightly.

“Several reasons. I know how poorly received your father’s theories were at every university he tried. If you want to continue your research, you’ll need powerful backing.”

“And money,” Peter added. Nathan looked at him, surprised to have his support here, but pressed on.

“And money. I can get that for you. I’ve been promised a seat on the Science and Technology committee, and my advisors tell me I’ll have some clout.”

Peter smiled. “No one wants to vote against Superman.”

Now it was Nathan’s turn to roll his eyes. Everyone seemed to want to tell him that. “More importantly, we need to avoid a panic. There’s already some private group locking up and studying these people—we don’t need the government to get in on that.”

“I thought this was the land of the free,” said Dr. Suresh, sarcastically.

“Guantanamo Bay, Japanese Internment during World War Two. When people are frightened, all that goes out the window.”

“Fine. I accept your offer,” said Dr. Suresh.

“Good,” said Nathan. “Write up what you’re going to say at the press conference and then send it to my office by Friday. I’ll fly you down to Washington on Monday.”

Dr. Suresh sighed heavily at that, like a recalcitrant teenager, but Nathan ignored that as well.

“I’m going to need you at that press conference, Peter,” said Nathan after Suresh had left. He leaned on the front of his desk.

“Yeah? Why?” asked Peter, dropping their united front. “I have things to do.”

He didn’t, of course, so Nathan continued. “I need you to make sure Suresh doesn’t say anything we don’t want.”

“You really don’t think people can handle it, Nathan?” asked Peter, walking up close to Nathan, and looking him square in the eyes.

“No, I really don’t.” Nathan put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “If he’s thinking about anything other than what we rehearsed I need you to—I don’t know—stop time.” Peter looked terrified at that prospect, so Nathan amended, “Or do something.”

“I could just erase everyone’s memory,” said Peter.

“No, that won’t work; there’ll be a live feed to the networks.” Nathan rubbed his chin.

“I was joking, Nathan.” Peter turned away from him.

“I wasn’t.” Nathan bowed his head, then said, exasperated, “Do you need a painting? Or a guy from the future to tell you how bad this could be?”

“Lies aren’t the answer.” Peter crossed his arms over his chest, and Nathan could see his control wavering a little, maybe a spark in eyes that wasn’t there before, or maybe a slight shimmering in the air around him, something breaking free. “This isn’t what we should be doing. You have to let me look at those paintings. I know they say something important.”

“You just got home from the hospital, Peter. I don’t need you putting yourself in a coma again.”

“What if something worse is coming? Let me see the paintings, and I’ll help you with the press conference.”

“You promise? You’ll help me before you off on some harebrained ‘mission’ again?”

“I promise,” said Peter solemnly.

“I’ll bring them up to your room,” said Nathan. “Just let me finish up some stuff here.”

After Peter left, Nathan unlocked the drawer in his desk and pulled out the paintings. He unrolled them carefully, removed the most offending images and locked them back in the drawer, then went upstairs the guest room that Peter had claimed as his own. Nathan looked around at the piles of clothing on the floor, the open suitcase. “You know, there is a closet, Peter.”

“Sure, _Mom_ ,” said Peter. “Come on, let’s look at them.”

Nathan handed Peter the paintings and Peter unrolled them and laid them out on the bed, as if they were of comic book panels. There was him and Peter in a car, outside the windows the rolling, wooded hills of Western New York, then a sign for Gary, Indiana and the unmistakable networks of pipes and the effluvia of industry. The next panel showed Nathan and Peter stopped on the side of the road talking with a cop.

Interspersed were paintings of a small boy with curly hair and dark, intelligent eyes, someone yelling him, him hiding in a corner not scared, but wary. In another panel he slept in a nest of straw and old papers, one of which was a program for the Cody Rodeo. The final painting showed him up against a wall, the silhouette of a uniformed man with a gun standing over him. The wall he stood against was smeared and pocked with blood and bullet holes.

“You were going to hide these from me?” asked Peter, disgusted. Peter ran his fingers over the paintings. “Cody, that’s in Wyoming,” he said.

A series of narrow panels showed their car driving up mountains and then both of them standing in a green-toned hotel room, looking at each other, too close for brothers, too close for anything, except the missing panels that Nathan had in his desk drawer. The Nathan-figure’s hand was on Peter’s cheek, Peter’s hand on Nathan’s chest, and looking at the painting, Nathan could feel tightness in his throat. If it was the future, what did those future brothers feel? Were they past worrying about this?

“What do you think happens next?” he asked gruffly.

“I don’t know,” said Peter. “You have those paintings.”

He put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder, but Nathan shrugged him off. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? When has Isaac been wrong? Everything he saw happened.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Leave this alone, Peter. You know what my paintings show,” said Nathan, a statement, not a question. “And you want to go anyway.” He didn’t know if he liked this new Peter, one he couldn’t hide things from, one who could read Nathan’s mind as easily as he read the pressure of Nathan’s fingers on his shoulder when Nathan couldn’t keep from touching him.

“This isn’t about _us_ , Nathan, it’s someone who needs our help.”

“How is this not about us?”

Peter looked at him, expression unreadable, and then looked away. Nathan knew what he could say, what he must have read in Nathan’s mind. _Part of you wants this, all of this._ And Nathan wouldn’t be able to deny it. The paintings showed a simple problem; no wonder Peter liked that kind of choice. Save the kid, be a hero, and whatever else happens to them is between them, and a dead painter.

“I can’t. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but at least—.” Nathan tried again.

“If I hadn’t followed those paintings before Claire would be dead.”

Nathan looked away. “I don’t know. There’s always more to Mendez’s paintings than they show.”

“We save the kid, get to be heroes,” said Peter, echoing Nathan’s thought. He gave Nathan that heartbreaking half-smile.

“That’s not all.”

“Come with me. Look, Christmas decorations. The newspapers are from this year. This will happen soon. This kid is one of us, and he’s going to be hurt.” Peter still had his hand on Nathan’s shoulder, and Nathan reached out to touch Peter’s cheek, so they almost mirrored the final panel in front of them. “I’m going even if you’re not, but you’re in the paintings. You have to come.”

“I can still—.” Nathan was ready to threaten all kinds of things, to cut off Peter’s credit cards, to commit him, but Peter interrupted him.

“Don’t, Nathan,” he said, shaking his head and looking disappointed. “They can’t hold me. Nothing can. I can fly to Cody right now. I can teleport.”

Nathan stepped back. “Then why don’t you? You don’t need me for this.”

“I always need you. Mohinder told you about my powers . . .”

“He said something about how you can’t use them all equally well,” said Nathan frowning.

“Yeah,” said Peter. He reached up to tuck his hair behind his ears but it was too short now, and he dropped his hand awkwardly. “Some of them put me in a coma.”

“Then you shouldn’t go at all,” he said, widening his eyes at Peter, projecting sincerity, although that hadn’t worked on Peter very well even before he could read minds, and was even less likely to work now.

“I’m going, Nathan.” Peter’s eyes were wide, and he still looked like a scared kid, even more now, with the scar across his forehead, but Nathan knew that expression. Peter would do what he wanted and nothing was going to stand in the way.

Nathan tried a different tack. “Someone sent us these paintings. Someone else knows.”

“Isaac’s estate . . .”

“Someone packed them up and sent them here. Paintings like this would be incredibly damaging, even if . . .” _Even if it weren’t true._ “If you help me figure out who else knows about this and neutralize them, I’ll go with you to Wyoming.”

“Neutralize?”

“Not as sinister as you’re thinking. You can erase their memory.”

“That’s sinister enough.”

***

“Dr. Suresh, what other abilities could people have?” asked a reporter. Suresh seemed somewhat shell-shocked by all the attention and questions at the press conference, but he gave Nathan a glance before answering, and Nathan nodded carefully, trying to indicate by his expression that Suresh should continue to follow the script.

“We don’t know,” he said. “My father’s research has various speculations, but until we can study these people . . .”

“So you advocate studying them?” asked the reporter from Fox News. “Do you think they’re dangerous?”

“Anything and anyone can be dangerous,” Suresh answered. “A scalpel used for life-saving surgery can also be used to kill.”

“What about registration?” asked the same reporter. “People have to register handguns.”

“A person is not a handgun,” said Suresh with a note of anger in his voice. “If one of these people is guilty of a crime, they should be tried like anyone else.”

“Are they? Guilty?”

Suresh looked at Nathan again, this time with rising panic written on his face. Nathan stepped toward the podium. “Dr. Suresh will answer any of your _science_ questions, but he is not here in a policy capacity.”

“What about you, Congressman, do you think they should be studied?”

“I’m interested in fixing this country’s problems with policy and real help, not being a guinea pig, and not flying around with a cape,” said Nathan with a modest version of his crowd-pleasing smile. “Dr. Suresh’s research is important and I will help him however I can, but it’s important to remember that these abilities may be no more extraordinary than having red hair, or being a great basketball player. In this country we don’t punish people for being different.” Nathan didn’t have to turn to feel Peter’s rolling his eyes behind him.

***

“That didn’t go very well,” said Sidney when he and Nathan met at Nathan’s home office after the press conference. “One: what was your brother doing there? If you wanted to keep him out of this you’re not doing a very good job. Two: you never told me there was a book.”

“It’s called research, Sidney,” said Nathan, “You should try it.”

Sidney balled his hands into fists and walked around the room. “I want to help you,” he said. “But you’re making it difficult. Did you watch Hannity last night?”

“You know I don’t watch that crap.”

“He’s hinting about executive powers, and ‘we need to know more about these people.’”

“And there’s a minister in Kansas saying that they’re—we’re abominations against God, that only God should have these powers,” said Nathan. “They’re narrow-minded idiots. You said no one wanted to vote against Superman.”

“Yeah, but they probably would vote against Dr. Doom.”

“I don’t follow,” said Nathan, although he did, all too well.

“Flying is cute. The rest of this . . .”

Nathan felt dread choking his throat for a moment, but he forced his breathing to stay calm, controlled. Yes, he had expected this, but he was still hoping, after he flew and his world had continued spinning, that somehow it would be alright. “Okay, we support further study, but civil liberties have to be respected, privacy, you know the rest.”

“That worked so well for detainees in Gitmo.”

Nathan frowned at him. “We’re not there yet.”

***

“We sent Polaroids of the paintings to Mr. Linderman, at Mr. Mendez’s request, then sent the paintings to their intended recipients,” said the lawyer tasked with disposing of the Mendez estate. He looked Nathan up and down with a disdainful smirk.

“So who else would have seen them?” asked Nathan.

“I don’t see what business of yours that is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to attend to.”

“Peter,” said Nathan, and the lawyer blinked at the non sequitur as Peter edged back into visibility beside him. It was still startling when he did that, even to Nathan, the way he faded in from nowhere. He looked tired, but determined, his eyes ringed with purple shadows.

“There’s a staff photographer they use for this sort of thing. He and this guy were the only ones who saw the paintings,” said Peter.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Hush,” said Nathan, then to Peter, “What’s the photographer’s name?”

“Something Dennehy. He has it in his Blackberry,” said Peter. He rubbed his forehead.

“Show me,” said Nathan, stretching out his hand. The lawyer took his Blackberry out of his suit pocket and gave it to Nathan. He darted a glance at Peter, but then turned back to stare at Nathan, eyes wide, petrified.

“Jason Dennehy, studio in Bed-Stuy.” He nodded to the lawyer. “Thank you for your help. Peter?”

Peter walked around to stand in front of the lawyer, put his hand on the man’s forehead with forefinger and thumb on opposite temples, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. “It’s done. He doesn’t remember.” Peter faded out again.

“Who are you people?” asked the lawyer, now sounding haughty rather than scared.

“Nathan Petrelli,” said Nathan. “I just wanted to thank you for your vote. Mr. Linderman and I appreciate it very much.”

The lawyer straightened his tie. “Of course, Mr. Petrelli. I don’t know where my mind went. Any help I can give you or Mr. Linderman, I’m happy to.”

“I’ll remember that.” Nathan smiled and nodded and allowed himself to be shown out, with Peter walking invisibly behind.

As soon as Nathan got into the back of his Towncar, Peter reappeared. “Ugh, that was awful,” he said, rubbing his forehead, and looking out the window.

“Are you feeling alright?” asked Nathan. “Still conscious?”

“Yes, it’s just . . . it’s awful to erase someone’s memory.”

“It’s necessary. We have to find that photographer.”

“I’m not doing that again, Nathan. Do you know what that was like?”

Nathan blinked slowly, and in his most pacifying voice said, “No, Peter, I have no idea. We just have to find the photographer, and then this is over.” He put his hand on Peter’s knee and looked at Peter until Peter turned his face back toward Nathan, eyes accusing. “Thank you for this.”

“Yeah, sure. And what happens if this Dennehy showed the paintings to someone else? Where does it stop?”

“If that is the case, we’ll deal with it later,” said Nathan. Peter turned away again.

The photographer was even easier to find to find than the lawyer. He had a slight recollection of the paintings, but didn’t connect them with Nathan at all, and Peter stayed invisible when he took the tiny slice of the Dennehy’s memory that contained them.

“What about Linderman?” Peter asked. “He has the Polaroids.”

“He has no interest in embarrassing me publicly,” said Nathan. “Not yet, anyway.”

***

That evening Nathan sat in his office eating a sandwich and drinking a beer while watching CNN. Heidi was gone to her in-laws for Thanksgiving, but Nathan wouldn’t drive up until Thursday morning. Heidi hadn’t even asked if he wanted to come early.

A segment on CNN about Religion versus Science mentioned Nathan and showed a clip of the press conference. Dr. Suresh looked peeved, Peter sullen, and Nathan desperate. Peter pushed open the door to Nathan’s office, came in and sat on the desk as Nathan rewound the clip to watch it again.

“You look better,” said Nathan, and he did. Peter’s skin had a little more color and he walked around the room with the impatient and restless energy that he’d had before all this.

“That tie bleeds on TV,” said Peter.

Nathan smiled. “I’ll wear something different next time.”

Anderson Cooper said something about how Chandra Suresh’s research challenged accepted notions of God’s plan, and then they showed a clip of Dr. Suresh that Nathan hadn’t seen before.

“Maybe we all have to face the fact as _homo sapiens sapiens_ , that perhaps we are not God’s final creation.” He had the fire of a zealot in his eyes, and Nathan turned off the TV, feeling tired.

“What do you think, Nathan?” Peter asked.

“I don’t want to think about this.” Nathan rubbed his temples. “I ran on a platform of economic reform.” He took a sip of his beer and turned up the volume on the TV a few bars.

Peter stood up and paced over to the window. “You _have_ to, Nathan,” he said. “You can’t keep avoiding it.” He pulled the curtain back and looked down over the shadowed front walk of the house. Nathan got up and walked over to stand next to him. “I almost exploded,” Peter continued, voice growing in volume. “I almost died more times than I can count. Your daughter can heal any injury. You can fly. And I—.”

Nathan touched his cheek. “You scare me most of all, Peter.”

“But not thinking about it _isn’t_ the solution, can’t you see that?” He turned to look into Nathan’s eyes, wearing the same impassioned expression that Dr. Suresh had worn earlier on TV.

Peter looked down, then, suddenly seeming aware of how close they were standing, how they had stood like this before, of what the paintings locked in his suitcase showed. Nathan could feel the change in the energy between them as if someone had flipped a switch. Maybe Peter’s mind-reading was rubbing off on him, or maybe this was a purely human response. He hadn’t let Peter see the paintings, but they were there in his mind, as clear as day if Peter wanted to look, impossible to hide.

“We have to talk about this, Nathan,” Peter said, almost a whisper. Nathan felt rooted in place. “We’ve never talked about it. This isn’t . . .”

“No, there’s something else we have to talk about,” said Nathan, artificially loud. The sound of his voice seemed to break the spell, and Nathan was able to pull his hand away from Peter’s cheek, to walk across the room. “You said Isaac Mendez was working for Mr. Bennet’s ‘Company.’”

“Yeah?”

“How do you know these paintings aren’t some kind of trap?”

“Isaac told me he couldn’t _not_ paint the future.”

“And you believed him?”

“What’s the problem, Nathan? We go to Wyoming, get this kid out of whatever trouble he’s in, come home. You get a nice vacation; I get some time with my big brother.” He grabbed Nathan’s arm, and spun Nathan toward him with a strength that was more than what he had in his body alone. Then he pulled his hand away and looked down at it as if it might belong to someone else. “You said you’d go, if I helped you clean this up. If I messed around in people’s minds just for your political ambition . . .” He ran his hands through his hair.

“Don’t . . . don’t threaten me, Peter.”

“Or what? Nathan we need to be there—I’ve had dreams. Terrible things happen if we don’t.”

Nathan raised his eyebrows. “Care to be any more specific?”

“Just give me a few days. The paintings are clear—this happens soon. I’ll make the arrangements, just . . . come. Keep me out of trouble? Won’t that be better than picking me up from jail?” He smiled then, so it didn’t sound like a threat, just Peter’s brand of manipulation: obvious, to be sure, but genuine at the same time.

“Three days, Peter. And we’re flying. I don’t care what the paintings show.”

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Nathan follow Isaac’s paintings across the country and find more than they expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you and hugs to [](http://eponis.livejournal.com/profile)[**eponis**](http://eponis.livejournal.com/) for story notes, pointing out that I can’t spell “Haitian,” beta-ing and general hand-holding. I couldn't have done it without you!

After Thanksgiving, Peter made arrangements to fly from Newark to Cody, Wyoming via Salt Lake City. Then Nathan had his travel agent upgrade the seats from coach to business, their car in Cody from an economy hatch-back to an SUV.

“Mormons. You’ll save me if they decide to string me up when I get off the plane?” Nathan asked dryly when Peter showed him the tickets.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

Nathan met with Sidney that afternoon “I shouldn’t be gone too long,” Nathan told him. “Peter . . . needs this.”

“Please tell me why you’ve decided to disappear again when all this is coming down. I don’t know how much longer I can cover for you.” Nathan didn’t say anything, and Sidney shrugged. “Fine, a few days I can manage. But we’re going to have to do some damage control. Where are you going?”

“Wyoming,” said Nathan, as he would say the name of some unfamiliar third world country. “Do you think anyone will recognize me out there?”

“Could be—this story got a lot of airtime. Just don’t _say_ anything,” said Sidney. “And call me every day. Things are going to change in a hurry, and I’m not sure you can get CNN or the Times where you’re going.”

Nathan grimaced. “Neither am I.”

Peter napped during the flight to Salt Lake City, curling up in his business class seat, after drinking a couple glasses of red wine. Nathan motioned for the flight attendant to bring over an extra blanket for him, and then settled in to read the blog entries, speeches and magazines that Sidney had selected for him. A few dealt with predictions about war policy and economic policy that would be handled in the upcoming session, but many more had to do with reaction to and speculation about what Nathan’s flying and the research of the Drs. Suresh meant to the country and the world.

The plane circled Salt Lake City for almost an hour, waiting for plows to clear snow off the runway. They missed the regional jet to Cody. When Nathan called his travel agent, she said that all the flights into Cody were cancelled until the plows got the highways cleared from the last big snow storm, and if another snow storm came, it could be days or even a week before they ran another flight.

“We can fly to Jackson Hole today,” Nathan told Peter. “It’s closer.”

“Maybe this is why we were supposed to drive,” said Peter.

“We’d still be in Ohio. And it’s good to know those paintings aren’t infallible,” said Nathan. Maybe it meant those torrid hotel-room scenes weren’t inevitable either.

They took a prop plane to Jackson Hole, and as it bucked and shivered in the crosswinds on both the ascent and the descent, Nathan wished he could have flown a different way. Or not at all. Peter was still determined to take on this quest, but if they couldn’t get to Cody for another few days, maybe he’d be willing to give up.

But that was probably wishful thinking; Peter never gave up on anything until he was good and ready to. Even nursing—Nathan would have loved to take credit for Peter giving that up, except he’d had nothing to do with it. The only enticement that pulled Peter away from one goal was something that appealed even more to his vanity, his desire to be a savior. But both Nathan and his mother had indulged Peter that way, and sheltered him from cold realities. Was it any wonder he still refused to face them?

Nathan looked over at him where he sat at the window of the plane, looking out as the snowstorms below moved across the mountains and plateaus. The mountains turned shell-pink before the sun set, and they landed in Jackson Hole in darkness.

By the time they landed, the weather had only worsened and the gate agent said there were no flights until the snow is cleared. “Is that normal?” Nathan asked testily. “Aren’t there ski areas? Tourist destinations?”

“They have private buses from Jackson Hole. I suggest that you find other means of transportation if you’re in a hurry,” she said.

“Earliest flight is Friday, and it could be longer than that,” said Nathan.

“So we drive,” said Peter. “Rent a car or something.”

“Maybe this is a sign,” Nathan suggested.

Peter gave him a skeptical look. “Come on, the car rentals are this way.”

They rented a car at the airport and printed out a map at the airport’s internet café. The roads were clear outside Jackson Hole, but as they gained elevation, Nathan saw drifts spilling into the road. About fifty miles outside Cody, a huge snowstorm blew up out of nowhere. The hours slipped by as Nathan drove slowly over the dips and rises in the road, feeling the car fishtail down the snowy hills.

A state trooper pulled them over going fifteen miles per hour as the snow storm thickened “Roads are closing, folks,” he said when Nathan rolled down the window.

“We have to get to Cody,” said Peter from the passenger seat.

“Not today. There’s a motel at Collier Bay Village, up the highway. You’ll need to stop there.”

Collier Bay had just one street, and a long, low building half-buried in drifted snow served as the town’s only motel. Nathan banged on the door of the owner’s cottage until he woke up and gave Peter and Nathan a key to one of the tiny rooms. “Only one left with heat,” he said, pocketing a hundred dollars of Nathan’s cash. “Take it or leave it.”

The room had wood veneer paneling, and a green shag carpet in the same garish colors in Isaac’s painting. A double bed took up most of the floor space. Outside, the wind drove snow and ice against the outside wall with a low hissing noise. Nathan turned the thermostat all the way up, but the room was still barely warm enough for their breath not to be visible.

“Not exactly the W,” said Peter before Nathan could say anything worse.

“It’s fucking freezing,” said Nathan. “Do you think he recognized me?” He knelt down to unzip his suitcase.

“He wanted to punch you for waking him up,” said Peter.

“That doesn’t take mind-reading.”

“No, he didn’t recognize you.” Peter brushed his hair away from his forehead, and old gesture that tugged at Nathan’s chest a little.

They both got ready for bed, all the while shivering and pulling on extra sweaters and sweatshirts. Nathan didn’t think about suggesting that one of them sleep on the floor; the room was too small, and they’d need the warmth. There was nothing tempting about taking off any of his layers—even twin blondes who fucked like Jessica sounded less appealing right now than staying warm.

Peter snuggled up to him shamelessly after they both got into the bed, and Nathan curled around his body, protective. “I need to see the other paintings,” said Peter after a pause.

“What? Now?” Nathan could hear the wind whistling outside through the flimsy walls, and he shivered and hugged Peter closer.

“No, I just—what if they jog a memory from a dream or something? You can’t protect me from this. You would never hurt me, Nathan. I know that.”

“That’s not what Isaac thought. Sleep, Peter.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Peter, after they lay in the dark for a moment. “I never saved anyone, not really,” he continued. “I put _them_ in danger. I put everyone in danger.”

This was Nathan’s moment to convince Peter to turn around, go back to the relative safety of New York, where the roads were always plowed, and flights never delayed longer than a day or so. Peter would hate him for it later, but Nathan had resigned himself to that before, when he threatened to have Peter committed. He shifted so Peter’s head was tucked comfortably under his chin.

“Shhhh,” said Nathan. He tilted his head down and pressed his lips to Peter’s forehead. He couldn’t disappoint Peter again, not now. “You saved Claire. That’s enough for . . . that’s enough.”

Peter fell silent and Nathan listened for the sound of his breathing, and thought again about whether he could convince Peter to turn around, even now. They’d only made it fifty miles from Jackson Hole and every mile closer to Cody was closer to those paintings and what would happen in them.

“There’s no point in hiding them from me anymore, Nathan, if you’re going to think about them so much.” There was a ghost of amusement in Peter’s voice.

“Stop . . . reading my mind.”

“I can’t help it,” said Peter.

“You don’t want to help it.”

“No, I don’t.” Peter sounded petulant. “It’s the only way you can’t lie to me.”

The usual denial sprung to Nathan’s lips, but it died there, unspoken. He’d been carefully showing only one side of himself to Peter for so long that without that armor he felt naked.

“I know now,” said Peter. “You want all the same things I do, except you can’t let yourself have them.”

Nathan rolled away onto his back. “I wanted to protect you.”

“You can’t!” Peter sat up and looked at him. “Nathan, everything is so fragile. The next power I encounter could kill me—you know that, so what does any of this matter? Why shouldn’t we—Isaac painted the future.”

“You’re letting the cold air in,” said Nathan mildly. Peter lay back down and turned so he was facing Nathan, their foreheads touching and a pocket of warm air between them. “It doesn’t mean we have to—look, what if all of these paintings are a trap? I know you don’t want to believe it.”

“It’s the future,” said Peter.

“So you’re saying we don’t have a choice. But we do. We could get on the next plane out of Jackson Hole and get back to New York. You could—I don’t know, go work in a hospital or something.”

“I’m done with nursing. Nathan, we have to be here. This is coming. You can’t run from it this time.”

Peter reached up and put his hand on Nathan’s cheek and this time Nathan tipped his chin down to kiss the palm of Peter’s hand. Yes, the kiss said, no more fighting this. “Sleep, Peter,” Nathan said again. “Tomorrow, I promise . . .” He didn’t know how to finish that, and he wondered if now Peter knew what he was promising more than Nathan did himself.

Peter put his arm around Nathan’s waist, then slid it up under Nathan’s shirt so he felt Peter’s warm hand on the cold skin of his back, then slowly, so slowly, lifted Nathan’s face up to his and kissed Nathan on the lips, the first time since he was too young to know any better.

“Is this the room in the paintings?” asked Peter, his voice dropping a whisper. Those paintings should have been a warning to stay away from this place, but instead served as a lure, for both of them. Permission of a sort, inevitability.

Nathan turned his face away, one final effort to deny this, but Peter said, “You promised . . .” A little boy’s words, but not a boy’s sentiment, or a boy’s voice. Maybe Nathan expected there to be some other barrier, that something would stop him at the last minute, but he felt like he’d been standing on the edge of a cliff all this time, only waiting for the moment he could fall off. Or fly.

Peter kissed Nathan deeper this time and Nathan kissed him back, slid his tongue over Peter’s lower lip, caught Peter’s lip between his teeth, nibbled and teased like he’d been practicing for this all his life, and maybe he had.

Nathan rolled Peter under him, cautious of the edge of the bed, but maybe because Peter could read his mind, or because they just fit, they tumbled together with no awkward elbows, no jostling for space, just Nathan on top of Peter, kissing him more, kissing him until their lips were both swollen, and Peter wrapped his legs around Nathan’s waist to pull him closer. He could feel Peter’s hips rocking at a rhythm just off his own, rubbing himself on Nathan, as Nathan stroked him back.

Nathan felt warm enough now. He sat up, and Peter pushed his hands up under Nathan’s shirt, then pulled it over his head. Nathan ran his fingers over Peter’s chest—he wanted to erase the fingerprints of every other person who had touched Peter, to make Peter his in a way he’d never been before. Nathan tried to slow down and check himself, to make sure that Peter still wanted this, but Peter arched his back under Nathan’s body and made strangled noises as if he’d never wanted anything else.

“I want you to fuck me,” said Peter after they kissed until Peter’s lips were bright red, until red marks from teeth and fingers adorned Peter’s neck. “I’ll tell you what to do—I just want—.” And it was what Nathan wanted too, what he never let himself want: Peter’s beautiful body, his abilities, his devotion—all Nathan’s.

Nathan knew how this went with a girl, a woman: first he went down, and then he fucked her, and when that thought crossed his mind, Peter smiled at him and said, “If you want to.” So Nathan kissed down Peter’s body, sucking on his nipples and sliding his hand under Peter’s ass to squeeze it, and then he licked a long wet stripe along Peter’s cock, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

He wet his fingers in his mouth, because that’s what he would do for a girl too. When he glanced up at Peter, Peter smiled and nodded again, and when Nathan bent his head down back to Peter’s cock, he circled his fingers around Peter’s entrance and then pushed one in. He could feel Peter’s hips moving in a rhythm a little faster than he was going, just a twitch, but Nathan started moving faster to catch up, moving his finger in and out and his mouth up and down, until Peter choked out, “Oh, God, Nathan,” half sobbing, and Nathan pulled his head up in surprise, and watched as Peter reached around and finished himself off with a few sharp strokes.

“Are you okay?” Nathan asked.

Peter smiled weakly. “Yeah,” he said, and there was a volume of other meaning in the way he sighed that word. “Please fuck me,” he said again.

Nathan slicked himself with Peter’s come, and, darting a glance at Peter’s face again, put the tip of his cock against Peter’s entrance. He stopped there and Peter reached out to put his hand on top of Nathan’s, where it rested on Peter’s hip. “I’ll tell you if it’s not right,” Peter said breathlessly. “Just go slow.”

Nathan pushed in as slowly as he can could bear, and the tightness was half pleasure, half pain, and Peter’s face was contorted in something Nathan didn’t know how to name, something beyond either. But he didn’t stop, and when he was all the way in, Peter gasped a “Yes. Please—” that gave Nathan permission to continue, to wrap his hands around Peter’s hips and pull him up to meet every stroke, Peter’s body around him felt like nothing else in the world, like falling, and like flying when he finally came. He could feel Peter coming with him, together like they were one person in two bodies, and Peter was finally _his_ in a way he’d never been before.

“I felt it,” Peter whispered, “I felt you.” They were too close: thoughts, and sensations and bodies threaded together, until Nathan wondered where one stopped and the other began.

“Mind-reading must nice skill to have for this,” said Nathan after he pulled out and lay down next to Peter. A note of sarcasm slipped into his voice; already he was trying to distance himself from this, but when Peter turned to look at him, all that slipped away again.

“Yeah,” said Peter, still sounding winded. “I . . .”

Nathan kissed the side of his neck. “I guess there are compensations.”

Peter exhaled loudly. “I’ll say.” He turned in Nathan’s arms so his head rested against Nathan’s shoulder. “What about Linderman?” he asked. “He knows about the paintings. He must know about us.”

Nathan hugged Peter closer and kissed his temple. He had his arm thrown over Peter’s waist, and it fit perfectly there. Peter’s fingers twined through his, and he could feel Peter’s breathing grow slow and even against his chest.

“We can’t touch him right now,” said Nathan. “But he needs me for some reason. He won’t betray us until he’s gotten what he wants.”

Peter seemed to accept that, and they fell asleep wrapped around each other with the blankets over their heads to trap in the heat.

Nathan woke up cold and stiff in the morning as the first blue pre-dawn glow shone in around the curtain. Peter had stolen most of the blankets and was curled up in them, his eyes closed and his face serene. Nathan disentangled himself from Peter and steeled himself for a lukewarm shower and threadbare towels. Peter mumbled a “good morning,” took a shower after him, and they both shivered hurried through their packing without much conversation.

Nathan wanted to say something, to apologize, maybe, but every time he looked at Peter the words caught in his throat and he didn’t. Peter had wanted this. They both did. And Nathan didn’t have it in him to fight about it now.

It took a few more hours of careful driving to get to Cody. Nathan was hungry and had slept poorly, but he couldn’t keep himself from glancing over at Peter every few minutes just to remind himself of how Peter had looked the night before, how his hands looked against Peter’s skin. Peter caught him looking a few times and smiled bashfully.

They ate a huge breakfast at the first diner they could found in Cody, and then got a hotel room at one of the chain hotels in the town’s center. Peter took the paintings out of the trunk of the car, and laid them out on one of the twin beds in the room.

“See, there’s the state trooper from last night, and I didn’t realize what this all-white painting was, but that black dot must be us, in the car.”

With great reluctance, Nathan unrolled the painting of the two of them. He tried not to watch Peter’s reaction, but he saw Peter flinch out of the corner of his eye.

“Isaac _hated_ me when he painted this,” Peter whispered. “It wasn’t like that.” Nathan felt a hard knot of guilt settle into his stomach. “He must have done this after . . . Simone.”

“Simone—that wasn’t your fault.” He grabbed Peter’s shoulder roughly and forced him to turn away from the paintings. “It doesn’t have to happen again.” Nathan could see the tears standing out in Peter’s eyes.

Nathan picked up the painting and rolled it back up again and slid it into the tube. “I’m going to check my email, and call Sidney,” said Nathan. “And then we can go looking for the kid in the paintings.” _And then we can leave and destroy these paintings before anything else happens,_ he added to himself, knowing Peter could listen to that thought.

“Have you been watching the news?” asked Sidney when he picked up the phone.

“Not since yesterday morning,” said Nathan. “What did I miss?”

“The President wants to call a lame duck session of Congress before the new one is sworn in. Can you be in your room tonight? I want you to take interviews with all the major networks after the president makes his announcement,” said Sidney.

“Sure. What’s the bill?”

“A bill to mandate everyone on Dr. Suresh’s list to present themselves for medical tests at NSF-selected labs.”

“Dr. Suresh’s list?”

“Apparently he sent it to the FBI when he was worried about their safety and now . . .”

“They’re using it against him.”

“Exactly,” said Sidney.

“So I’m going to come out against the bill—privacy, first amendment issues. Can you email me some talking points?”

“Nathan, some polling got leaked. They’ve been preparing for this.” Sidney sighed. “I think you should come out for it. This isn’t going to go away. The party knows that the country is scared and they don’t want to be seen making the issue worse.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then you shouldn’t be available at all,” said Sidney. “If this bill passes, which it will, I don’t think the next Congress will be overturning it. You don’t want to go on record as being against it.”

“You don’t think it will look suspicious if I don’t speak?” asked Nathan, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I think it will be worse if you do.”

“Fine. Send me everything you can about the bill. I’ll decide about this later.”

Sidney hung up the phone and Nathan sat, staring at the screen of his phone but not really seeing it, until Peter, put his hand on his shoulder. “What was that about, Nathan?”

“Political stuff, Peter. Nothing interesting.”

Peter frowned at him but didn’t pursue the question.

**

The day was clear, but bitterly cold and getting colder, and even the walls of the much nicer hotel didn’t seem to be able to hold it out the wind. Nathan got a tourist map from the front desk and figured out where the rodeo was. The front gate was locked, but it was an open-air stadium, and Nathan hesitated barely a moment before looking around and then floating up into the air over the gate.

Peter followed a minute behind. There were several sheds on the other side of the stadium, so they walked toward them across the snow-covered field.

“Can you think a little quieter,” said Peter, after a moment. “I’m trying to listen.”

“Mmmm. I’ll just be . . .” Nathan pointed to another shed on the other side.

Peter nodded absently and continued toward the larger sheds.

But Nathan didn’t find anything in the small tool shed, Peter heard neither thoughts nor cries for help, and after looking around for a while, growing colder and colder, they decided to ask around in Cody proper.

Nathan showed a picture of the kid from the painting to a few shop owners. “You’re freaking them out,” said Peter after a few citizens professed no knowledge, and they trudged back to the car. “’Have you seen this boy.’ You sound like the Terminator.”

“Did any of them know anything? That you could pick up?”

“No. No one has seen him.”

“Well. You hungry? I’m sure you can’t get dinner in this town past 7pm.”

“Snob.”

“I saw a steakhouse near the hotel.”

They were both incredibly hungry after wandering around in the cold all day. The steakhouse was called the Old Homestead, which was faintly amusing, since that was also the name of one of New York’s best steakhouses, but this one had sawdust on the floor and steaks for twenty dollars instead of fifty. It did have a fairly impressive wine list, though.

“We get a lot of tourists here going to Yellowstone,” said the waitress, when Nathan raised his eyebrows at the list of wines ranging from twenty dollars to five hundred. “Not this time of year, though. What brings you out here?”

“We’re ski resort developers,” said Peter with a hint of a smile on his face. Nathan fought not to roll his eyes.

“There are some good slopes around here,” said the waitress. “But a lot of it’s national park land.”

“I have some connections in Washington,” said Peter, shooting Nathan a mischievous look.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” asked Nathan after the waitress had brought their wine and left them to themselves. “It’s not okay when I lie, but—.”

“This is harmless. And maybe I’m learning something from my big brother.”

“No, you cooked that story up all on your own.”

They walked back through the bitter, windy cold to the hotel. In the hundred yards separating the restaurant from the hotel, three cars stopped to make sure they didn’t need a lift. “Friendly people here,” said Peter. “You really think we’ll find him?” he asked when they got back to the hotel room.

Nathan shrugged. Peter’s need for reassurance now was strange—he’d always seemed so certain before, even when plunging off in directions Nathan couldn’t begin to understand.

“The paintings showed him here,” said Nathan, as he picked up his cell phone and turned off the ringer, then unplugged the hotel’s phone. “Some one might try to call,” He didn’t want Peter to pick up a call from any of the networks. Sidney was probably right—better to avoid this issue for now. If he spoke out against the bill, it would look self-serving, and he couldn’t speak for it. And for good or ill, the president was sparing him from having to vote.

He stripped off his clothes so he could take a hot shower and warm up before sleeping. He heard Peter brushing his teeth and rummaging through his suitcase. Maybe it was better this way. Now they knew—maybe now the temptation would be gone. Well, not gone, thought Nathan, as he remembered again what Peter looked like under him, Peter sucking on his fingers, Peter gasping with pleasure—but the curiosity was satisfied.

Then Peter stepped into the shower, and Nathan felt as if it had never been satisfied at all. Peter pushed him up against the cold tile walls and pressed the length of his body along Nathan’s. He sucked and bit Nathan’s neck hard enough to sting, hard enough to leave a bruise, then pulled back. “See, this goes both ways. If I’m yours, then you’re mine,” he said, answering Nathan’s thoughts from the night before.

Peter was rougher this time, after he pulled Nathan out of the shower—as if he’d been holding back last night and but he didn’t have to.

“You sure?” asked Nathan when Peter pushed him down on the bed and climbed on top of him.

“Maybe I should ask you that,” said Peter. He licked his lips. “But I know.”

Peter’s certainty was infuriating, and Nathan tried to roll Peter off of him, to get the upper hand physically if he get it couldn’t in any other way, but Peter held him there. “You’re enjoying this,” said Nathan.

“I should be,” he said with a grin.

Peter put some lube on his hand and worked it onto Nathan’s cock. Nathan wondered, stupidly, when Peter’d had a chance to go to a drug store, but then he couldn’t wonder about anything at all except being inside Peter again, watching Peter move on top of him, watching Peter stroke himself. Nathan sat up and grabbed Peter’s hips to guide him better, this time Nathan was the one to call out when he came.

“You like that,” said Nathan, after, still half-hard inside Peter, with sitting on top of him.

Peter bent down to kiss Nathan’s neck. “You would, too,” he said. “Maybe next time.”

“Hmmm,” said Nathan, thinking _like hell_ , but Peter just laughed.

***

They went to the rodeo again, in case the day before had been earlier than the paintings showed. This time at the first shed they came to, Peter held up his hand for silence, and when he pulled the door open, there was a boy standing in the doorway, wearing a huge parka and holding a GameBoy in his hands.

“About time you’re here,” he said. “I was getting cold.” He stuck out his hand toward Peter, and Peter took of his glove and shook the kid’s hand. “I’m Micah Sanders,” he said, gravely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Nathan turned to Peter. “Well, that was anti-climactic. What the hell is going on?”

“You must be Peter and Nathan,” said Micah. “They said you’d be here.”

“Who?” asked Nathan.

“Jessica. And Mr. Linderman.”

“Linderman set this up?” asked Nathan, turning toward Peter angrily. “Perfect.”

“Nathan,” said Peter in a pacifying voice. “I’m sure it’s not Micah’s fault.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” he said, glaring at Peter. “You were supposed to be in some kind of danger,” he said to Micah. Micah’s eyes widened and he backed up slightly, until he was pressed against the wall of the shed.

Peter put his hand on Nathan’s arm to calm him, and just asked, “Do you know why, Micah?”

Micah shrugged. “They said you needed to be here, and you wouldn’t come if I wasn’t here.”

“What about your mother, does she know you’re here?”

“I’m sure Jessica told her.”

“Who is Jessica?”

“She’s my mother’s twin sister.”

“And your mother is . . .?”

“Nikki Sanders.”

Nathan walked a few feet away from Micah, into the empty arena. Snow had started to fall again. Peter said something quietly to Micah and then walked over to join him. “Who is Nikki?” Peter asked.

“Vegas. Blonde,” said Nathan, _sotto voce_.

Peter gave him an easily readable look. “For all the trouble I get into, you . . .”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Well, we have to get him back to his mother,” said Peter.

“And play right into Linderman’s hands?”

“We can at least get out of the cold and try to find out if he knows anything else. I’m sorry, Nathan.”

They took Micah back to the diner for a hot chocolate and some waffles. It didn’t take long to get the full story from him. His mother had dropped him off here a few days earlier, telling him to be in the shed at the rodeo arena on this day. “And now you’re supposed to drive me to Vegas.” Micah took another bite of waffle.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t just fly your mother here to pick you up.” asked Nathan, biting off the words furiously. “Why should we go to Vegas?”

“Mr. Linderman said that you’re the one who can save us all from what’s coming.”

“And why should I trust him?”

“He said you’re being watched. He said that he knows.”

“Knows what?” asked Nathan, careful now, trying to hide some of his fear and anger behind a slow, measured tone.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Mr. Linderman is a bad man, Micah,” said Peter. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t think that matters to Jessica. And even Mom agreed this time.” He put his hand to the mini jukebox sitting on the table next to them, and closed his eyes for a moment. The previous song stopped abruptly and “Mr. Sandman” started playing, filling the diner with its tinny innocence. “He says we all need to cooperate, if we’re going to survive.”

Peter sat in the back with Micah on the drive back to Jackson Hole, and played card games with him, then, when Micah found those too easy, switched to playing chess on Micah’s little magnetic travel set. “Nathan, he keeps on beating me,” Peter fake-whined.

“Your mother told me you were very smart,” said Nathan, glancing in the rearview mirror at them. Peter’s head was bowed and a comma of hair curved forward over his forehead. Nathan pulled his eyes back to the road.

They returned the car, caught the last flight from Jackson Hole to Vegas, and arrived around midnight at the Las Vegas airport. “Where’s your mom?” asked Peter, as they walked by a bank of slot machines. Micah stopped and put his hand on the last one, and Nathan watched the expression of the woman playing turn from annoyance to pleasure as the machine started flashing and clanging and it spat out a ticket for its jackpot.

“I’ll get to see her when you see Linderman. He said you could stay at his hotel,” said Micah.

They took a taxi to Linderman’s hotel, and when Nathan got to the front desk, the clerk handed Nathan a key and a sealed envelope, and told him that the room was already reserved and paid for by Mr. Linderman. “He’s awfully sure of himself,” said Peter under his breath, looking worried.

“I’ll come up to your room and disable the cameras,” said Micah after the bellman took Nathan and Peter’s luggage. “Mr. Linderman said you’d want me to.”

“How do we know you’ll get all of them?” asked Nathan. Peter shot him a look again and Nathan sighed. Be nice to the kid, right.

“I told Mr. Linderman I wouldn’t lie for him,” said Micah seriously. “And I won’t. He says he has no need to watch you now.”

“That’s not ominous,” said Peter quietly to Nathan as they took the elevator up to the room.

Micah looked around the room, then went into a corner and said, “There’s fiber-optic camera in that corner. If you can help me climb up, I’ll disable it.”

Nathan went into the bathroom and opened the envelope. Inside it were stills from a security camera, of him and Peter, fucking in the hotel in Cody, just like the paintings showed, the perspective almost identical.

Nathan wadded on one of them up into a ball and flung it at the trash can, but it was a useless gesture. Linderman had trapped him again, and Nathan had walked right into it. He hadn’t imagined Linderman’s reach was that long, but he should have. He took a deep breath and went back out into the hotel room.

Peter had moved the desk from the window into the corner that Micah indicated, and helped him climb up so he could get up and do whatever it was he did. “How do you do that?” asked Peter, as Micah put his hand to the wall.

“Now no one can spy on you,” said Micah to Nathan. He turned toward Peter. “I understand machines.”

Peter smiled indulgently, but Nathan could see him thinking, processing, adding this new skill to his repertoire.

“You need to see Mr. Linderman now,” said Micah, knocking on the door. Nathan slipped the pictures into his breast pocket, smoothed his hair back and went to do just that.

***

“Merry Christmas,” said Mr. Linderman when Nathan escorted Micah into Linderman’s office, followed by an invisible Peter. “I see you’ve met Micah.”

“Yes,” said Nathan, carefully. “He told me some very interesting things.”

“’Out of the mouths of babes,’” quoted Linderman. “Micah, your mother is waiting for you in my study. Why don’t you join her?” Micah nodded and followed a blocky, anonymous security guard out of the room.

“Why this?” asked Nathan. He took the pictures Linderman had sent them out of his breast pocket and spread out the pictures on Linderman’s desk. “Don’t you have enough on me?” Nathan heard Peter gasp, and Linderman looked up with an expression of mild surprise on his face.

“Put those away, Nathan,” said Linderman. “I believe a man’s private life should be just that: private. But sometimes we must overcome our distaste, and do what is necessary.”

“How was this necessary?” asked Nathan, struggling to keep the growing anger out of his voice. “You have me. Why do you need to threaten my family?”

“This was a lot of work to engineer, Nathan. I can't believe you're not the least bit grateful.” Linderman still sounded like the kindly grandfather he had during their last meeting. Linderman cultivated that disconnect, Nathan knew, but he had ceased to be charmed by Linderman long ago.

“Isaac was working for you?” Nathan asked. His finger twitched. If he’d had a gun this time, he wouldn’t have hesitated.

Linderman shook his head. “No, I am just lucky enough to be in a position to collect his work.”

Nathan balled his hands into fists at his sides. “So why, then?” he asked.

“There is a storm coming, Nathan, one that will make that unfortunate incident in New York look like a tempest in a tea-kettle.”

Nathan looked down at his hands and flexed them, remembering again the flesh peeling off of them as Peter exploded, remembering long past he should have ceased to have memory, buildings crumbling and a bone-deep feeling of failure, even as his bones turn to dust.

“Why do you think you remember that, when no one else except Peter knows what really happened?” asked Linderman. Nathan frowned, not following. “Never you mind. We’ll come back that. You see, that needed to happen, so that Peter could master his powers.”

“His powers almost killed him.”

Linderman smiled and shook his head. “His powers will not be what kill him,” he said. “This I can promise you. Incidentally, Peter, you don’t have to continue hiding like that. I know you’re in here, and I find it rude to talk about a man as if he’s not there.”

Nathan turned to see Peter shimmer into visibility next to him. “Thank you, Peter,” said Linderman. “There were very few futures where New York was actually destroyed.” At Peter’s confused look he added, “Isaac was not the only one with his unique ability, although his visions came in clearer than most, and his style had a certain flair. Dr. Suresh’s list is not the only list. For centuries, painters, poets and seers have seen the future, and expressed it in whatever way they knew how. My collection of their works is unrivaled.

“No, Nathan the storm to which I am referring is political. You know what has happened since that disastrous press conference of yours. I don’t blame you, but it did kick the inevitable wave of fear into motion that much sooner. And you know how our president loves fear.”

“But he’s losing ground,” said Peter. “Everyone is against the war. It won’t be another Republican in office next.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Linderman. “In a state of emergency, elections can be suspended. The current administration, the only ones that most people will believe can stem the tide, will stay in power. They will round up and kill children like Micah, those whose abilities are too dangerous to study.” Peter looked at him sharply. “Yes, that picture was misleading, but again, necessary. The terror will last for many years, and in the end, this country will have lost what little moral standing it still possesses.

“There is only one future where this does not happen. Nathan, you will be, as I have said, a heartbeat away from the presidency, and I will get you there. But you will need all your brother’s talents to effect that outcome. You must be entirely united. Your connection goes deeper than you can possibly imagine.”

“So you really are working for good,” Peter said sarcastically.

Linderman shrugged. “Good, evil. There is a greater evil here than anything I have done. And Nathan will need my influence to prevent this particular evil from coming about. Perhaps a trip to my gallery will help convince you, Peter.”

Nathan’s jaw clenched every time Linderman said Peter’s name, and Linderman seemed to notice that. “Relax Nathan. I have no designs on your brother. He is still yours.”

Peter shot Nathan a questioning look, but said nothing as they followed Linderman through another door, and into a long room whose walls were covered with wine-colored velvet curtains. “Here are the futures I have collected,” said Linderman, pressing a switch that lifted the curtains into the ceiling.

Nathan walked around the room slowly, taking it in. The paintings were done in a variety of styles, but the subject matter was chillingly similar. Officers in Navy, Army, Marines uniforms penning children and adults into cages. Hands reaching through chain link fences. Smears of blood across a white tile wall, smears made by hundreds of hands, and a floor painted dark rust with blood.

“The killings will be horrible,” said Linderman. “Much of what I’ve done for the last twenty years has been to research and prevent this future. Forget the pictures I have of you, forget the threats, forget everything but this room, and help me prevent this.”

Nathan glanced at Peter. He could see tears standing out in Peter’s eyes, but Peter’s jaw was clenched. He was strong enough for this, Nathan knew; he would have to be.

“I will,” said Peter. He looked at Nathan. “We will.”

Nathan looked around the room at those uncertain futures until he saw one that was different, one that showed him standing in the oval office with a young man who looked like an older version of Micah, and a young woman who had to be Claire. Their hands were joined together, and although the Nathan figure wasn’t smiling, he looked calm, safe, in control.

“Yes,” said Nathan. “I will.”

“So you’ll give us the pictures, as a token of good will?” Nathan asked as they walked out of the room, with Linderman guiding Peter by the small of his back.

“No,” said Linderman. He turned back toward Nathan with an unreadable expression on his face. “And this is why: in the futures where you do not prevent this . . . carnage, you, Nathan Petrelli, are the architect of it.”

Peter pulled away from Linderman and clenched his hands into fists. “I’d die before I’d let that happen,” he said.

Linderman nodded. “You would and you do,” he said. “Those pictures of the two of you are my tiny bit of insurance against such an eventuality. I hope it will be enough.” He looked at Nathan, his blue eyes hard and cold like a winter sky, and as unforgiving. “Greatness cuts both ways, Nathan. Remember that.”

***

“You wouldn’t do those things,” said Peter when they got back to the hotel room. “I know you, you wouldn’t.” His voice sounded stubborn and he stuck out his lower lip. Nathan would have laughed at him for looking like a petulant child if this hadn’t been so serious. “Come on, Nathan, it’s not true. I _know_ you.” He grabbed onto Nathan’s shoulder hard enough to bruise.

Nathan knew how to make this right; he could pull Peter close, press his lips to Peter’s temple, and tell him that of course he wouldn’t, but Peter needed to understand, to hear the truth for once. “I wouldn’t? You don’t think I might see a path to power by playing on people’s fears? Better men than me have gone that route.”

“If I thought you could I’d—,” said Peter, holding even tighter.

“You’d what, Peter? Erase my memory? Make me explode?” Peter looked down, and Nathan knew he wasn’t ready yet to carry out his threats, or even to voice them, but some day he would be. “I won’t, Peter. I can see where that road ends. But what if Dr. Suresh does invent a cure? What if . . .?” Nathan could see how it would happen. The government would round people up, cure those they could, get rid of those they couldn’t. He could imagine how it would be marketed, as another way to fight terror, as if fear were something that could be defeated. And Nathan might hold onto the reigns of whatever power he had rather than let someone else take control. He could even imagine justifying it: “The country needed to feel safe.”

Peter recoiled from Nathan’s thoughts and let go of Nathan’s arm as if touching Nathan disgusted him. “How can anyone think that way?”

“Most people do. You just hear what you want to hear, Peter. Listen some time. You have to know what you’re up against.”

“What _we’re_ up against,” said Peter. “You don’t want those futures to happen.” His voice was desperate, pleading.

“No,” said Nathan. “But I can understand those who do.”

“I won’t let you,” said Peter. He looked up at Nathan. His eyes were wide and his face was innocent and beautiful, so beautiful. “I love you, Nathan, but I promise . . . I would stop you. I’ll stop anyone who wants . . . that.”

“I know,” said Nathan. “That’s why Linderman needs both of us. That’s why he needs us together.”

He reached out to take Peter’s hand, and pulled him into a hug. Peter buried his face in Nathan’s neck and Nathan stroked Peter’s hair. “Stay with me,” Nathan said.

And this time Peter nodded, and said, “I will.”


End file.
